If you are a Strava user, please have a look at your privacy settings and consider what information you wish to share. At the moment it is possible to trace where expensive bicycles are located.
You may wish to take some or all of the following actions:
-remove your full name (under settings)
-simplify bike description eg ‘road’
-anonymise location (under privacy)
Then you can carry on enjoying your Strava addiction.
Sally
Thanks Sally, very interesting that ‘people out there’ can trace our belongings. I use Garmin website for my uploads etc and no personal info declared….I’ll keep my eyes open though. Did invest in gold rated D locks and other cabling after the V V recent warning of bike thefts, so all mine are locked, bolted and in secure shed. Best to you all
My pride and joy bikes were stolen this week: A Pinerello Prince and a Cervelo P2. I am sure the early settings for Strava had something to do with it. I changed my settings to increase privacy but I think it was too late. Strava should default to a more secure setting when you first join to stop this happening. 2 other friends of mine had the same happen, both on Strava. Don’t be complacent either, my bikes were D locked and chained in my locked garage too.
🙁
Hi there,
I hope you don’t mind me posting a few additional tips about bike theft and the Internet.
– Using the same nickname on the map sharing route sites as you do on any forums, social networking sites, blogs, ebay etc
– Having your social networking and route mapping accounts open to people other than your friends. This makes it too damn easy for people to see where you are training, who you are with etc. The best way to check what information you are showing is to copy your website address from the account and ask a friend to check it. They’ll probably look for different details than you.
– Posting advertisement with give away clues when selling old bikes ie ‘now have a great new bike so don’t need this one’
– Having any pages online that show your full name and user ID. It just makes it that much easier to track where you live, especially if you have an unusual name.
– Bragging about your kit and new bling bike on bike threads on forums, and posting pics.
– Listing the details of your bikes on Strava. Just use road1, 2 etc or log bike mileage elsewhere if you need to do it.
– Starting maps or your Garmin near your house. Mapmyrun, Garmin connect etc don’t allow you to hide the start and end points on maps.
– Posting your times, race numbers etc on threads just makes it that bit easier to find out who you are in ‘real life.’
– Publishing rides on map sharing sites while you are away.
– Using pics of your new bike bling as your avatar.